Current and Past SOCOM Commanders Split on Women in Combat

"About 30 percent of infantry units are men who didn't volunteer to be in front-line combat, and if we are willing to order women into combat -- not just let them volunteer for it -- then that is an entirely different discussion."'

Why is that 'an entirely different discussion?'

Men and women are not interchangeable. If they were, we could have just one standard. Instead we have two genders with different biology, so we have a standard for each or a "double standard"

I assume there is a recruitment path for infantry. If only a small percent (2 -5%?) of women can meet the physical standard for infantry, then how much money and effort do we spend on it. What do we remove from the budget to accommodate the 2-5%?

IMO, it's worth a conversation.

The goal of the military is to protect our borders, defend our country, our freedoms, etc if someone could convince me that h*ving women in the infantry is money and effort well spent, I would be all for it. So far all I get from feminists is they want equal opportunities. All I get from MRAs is they want to see equal number of casualties and injury to both genders.

Neither of these reasons seem good enough to me and we would just end up with more deaths and less freedoms as we would have a weaker military.

Clearly the best solution is to get rid of the draft, and allow women to serve. That way no one is being discriminated against, or coerced. But they won't do that. Can't let their male slaves have autonomy, can they?

This is why I say every military in the world can shove it. A man would have to be out of his mind to support such a corrupt system.

Why is the best solution to have no discrimination and no coercion?

Discrimination serves as an efficiency tool. The military discriminates in all kinds of ways besides gender. (body size, health, age, handicaps)

Coercion - How I understand it, the men were not coerced to serve (The United States has not drafted soldiers in like 50 years). They volunteered for the military, so they knew infantry was a possibility. When a need for infantry soldiers arose, they did not specifically volunteer for the position, but had to be assigned. Personally, I think everyone should have to do their share to protect our country if our military ran out of volunteer soldiers.

. . .discrimination in the context of forcing one gender to sign up for the selective service, and not the other. I didn't mean soldiers who voluntarily enlisted ending up in infantry, which they do not like. I meant coercion in the context of being forced to fight in a war you did not sign up for.

I think if a country is worth defending, people will step up and defend it. A nation shouldn't have to force people to do so; tyranny is not worth defending.

The possibility of young men being sent to war without volunteering is a very real one. Forcing someone into military service against their will is technically a form of slavery.

BTW, if everyone should have to do their share to protect the country, then why don't we start registering women in the selective service? Perhaps not for combat per se, but to do other military duties? Come on, there hasn't even been a draft in like 40 years (last draft was Vietnam war which ended in 1972). It's funny because that idea would get shot down the moment it was brought up, and women's lives wouldn't even be anywhere near as at risk as the men's. Nice to know how much men's lives are valued by society.